For their nobles; to keep them at a distance, it is not amiss; but to depress them, may make a king more absolute, but less safe; and less able to perform any thing that he desires. I have noted it in my History of King Henry the Seventh of England,[1] who depressed his nobility; whereupon it came to pass that his times were full of difficulties and troubles; for the nobility, though they continued loyal unto him, yet did they not co-operate with him in his business. So that in effect he was fain[2] to do all things himself.
For their second-nobles; there is not much danger from them, being a body dispersed. They may some times discourse high, but that doth little hurt; besides, they are a counterpoise to the higher nobility, that they grow not too potent; and, lastly, being the most immediate in authority with the common people, they do best temper popular commotions.
For their merchants; they are vena porta;[3] and if they flourish not, a kingdom may have good
- ↑ Henry VII., 1457–1509, first Tudor King of England, 1485–1509.
- ↑ Fain. Obliged or compelled.
- ↑ Upon this phrase, which recurs two or three times in Bacon (see for instance the History of Henry VII., page 259; "being a king that loved wealth and treasure, he could not endure to have trade sick, nor any obstruction to continue in the gate-vein, which disperseth that blood,") I am indebted to Mr. Ellis for the following characteristic note. "The metaphor," he writes, "is historically curious; for no one would have used it since the discovery of the circulation of the blood and of the lacteals. But in Bacon's time it was supposed that the chyle was taken up by the veins which converge to the vena porta. The latter immediately divides into branches, and ultimately into four ramifications, which are distributed throughout the substance of the liver, so that it has been compared to the trunk of a tree giving off roots at one extremity and branches at the other. Bacon's meaning therefore is, that commerce concentrates the resources of a country in order to their redistribution. The heart, which receives blood from all parts of the
